The Talk
by Makkoska
Summary: On the way home from the Land of Waves, Team Seven wants to talk about Zabuza and Haku with their sensei. Kakashi would rather not, but in the end he's forced into a corner and agrees to give them The Talk. Implied yaoi. One shot.


_**A/N:**__ I wrote this awhile ago, but only now got around to translate and post it. This is pretty harmless, even the T rating might be too high, but I've never wrote anything that wasn't Mature rated in this fandom (or ever) so I'm not sure about the other codes._

_No real pairings, just talks about Zabuza and Haku and maybe the slightest bit of Naruto/Sasuke. So slight that you'll miss it if you blink._

/*/*/*/

"Kakashi sensei! Hey, Kakashi sensei, are you listening?"

"Hm? What's it, Naruto?" the masked man dragged his single visible eye away from the second volume of Icha-Icha Paradise with relaculane and looked down to his most wearisome pupil.

"I can't get how you're able to read while walking."

"I can't, if you keep interrupting," he tried to get absorbed in the book was at the best part. He was re-reading it for at least the tenth time, but it still held his attention as it did on first read.

"Senseeeei...Kakashi senseeeei! I want to ask something."

"What," he didn't even glance up now, but Naruto wasn't someone who got a subtle hint and would have left him to his own.

"I want to ask you about Haku and Zabuza. They were _strange _together, weren't they?"

Involuntarily, Kakashi's glance jumped to the blond kid before it returned to the line he left the page at.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well..." Naruto scratched the nape of his neck, ruffling his ever unruly hair even more. "In the end it turned out that Zabuza cared about Haku, right? And Haku..." he sniffled, but when Sasuke made a derisive snort next to him he quickly held back the threatening tears. "...he sacrificed himself to save him, dattebayo."

"Yes," Kakashi interrupted quickly, hoping to finish this conversation then and there. Although for all intents and purposes Haku committed suicide with jumping in front of the fatal strike he had meant for Zabuza, it was still the technique of the copying nin what ended his life. That night Kakashi scrubbed his hands for long minutes, but even the next day he imagined he could feel the blood of the boy on his skin. He didn't want to talk about them.

"...and in the end Zabuza chose death as well..." but of course Naruto couldn't be deterred when something got stuck in his one-track mind. "But if Haku was important to him, why hadn't he ever shown it? Why did he acknowledge it only when it was too late?"

"People sometimes," the masked man started slowly, looking for the right words "doesn't really know what to do with their emotions. They got afraid to love the others..."

"What a stupid thing to say, sensei," the disrespectful brat announced and folded his hands behind his neck. "Why would anyone be afraid to love? Zabuza was like a father for Haku. He would have been happy to know that Zabuza also thought of him like a son!"

Kakashi just made a noncommittal grunt at that and buried his nose in his book again, hoping it would serve as a barricade between himself and the world, but especially a pig headed, annoying brat in orange jumpsuit. If he refused to say a thing, Naruto would be forced to drop this conversation... But unfortunately his other two darling apprentices decided to join in at that point.

"Father and son, my ass!" Sasuke barked out a humourless laugh. "It's obvious that you don't have the slightest clue how a parent behaves with their child, you dolt. I think Zabuza just couldn't stomach that he lost, that's why he charged Gato and his thugs. He rather died than to face the humiliation of defeat."

"That's not true!" Naruto raised his voice. "He _cried _at the end! And he asked the sensei to carry him to Haku so he could see him for one last time. Right, sensei? Kakashi sensei, are you paying attention?"

"Hmm..."

"You see, the sensei agrees with me!"

"You're a complete moron! He took advantage of his devotion, right till the very end..."

"No, because in the end he realized..."

"It doesn't matter what he realized! By then the boy was dead. A father..."

"Boys, don't argue," Kakashi interrupted and wished they were already home in Konoha where he could lock the door of his apartment to block out the brats for at least a day.

"But... there's more types of love, don't you think?" Sakura glanced timidly at Sasuke. "Even if he didn't consider himself as Haku's father, he still might liked him...differently." The masked man cast a suspicious glance at the girl, but the green eyes were opened wide and seemed innocent enough.

"What other types, Sakura-chan?"

"Like... master his disciple... or elder brother his younger siblings..."

"None of you know _anything_!" the Uchiha hissed. He folded his arms in front of his chest and turned his nose up, so everyone could read what he exactly thought of his teammates.

"D-did I say something wrong, Sasuke-kun?"

"Leave him be, Sakura-chan. I think you're right..."

"Nobody asked _you_, Naruto!"

"We should set our camp for tonight," Kakashi pointed at a small clearing not far off from the road. He was happy that the attention of the kids was averted from the embarrassing topic, even if it meant more arguments among them. Unfortunately however he wasn't let off the hook so easily.

/*/*/*/

"When I first saw Haku without a mask," they were all sitting next to the campfire when Naruto continued the aborted conversation as if two hours hadn't passed "I thought he was a girl. _If _he'd been a girl, I'd say he was in love with Zabuza."

"But he wasn't a girl," Sakura chided him "and Zabuza was _terribly _old anyway."

"He couldn't have been older than me," Kakashi injected but regretted immediately that he opened his mouth at all.

Sakura glance spoke volumes that she thought him terribly old as well, though she was kind enough not to say it out loud.

"Still," she said "Haku was a boy, so the whole line of thought is just stupid. Don't you agree, Sasuke-kun?"

"I still say that he didn't feel anything for Haku."

"I got it, I got it!" Naruto exclaimed happily "Can't it be that Zabuza thought Haku was a girl as well, so..."

"Naruto, you idiot!" Sakura rewarded this idea with a slap on the head. "How on earth could he have he thought that?! He obviously knew Haku a thousand times better than you!"

"Well, he might not have mistaken Haku as a girl and still..."

"Still what, Sasuke?" the blond asked, clutching his head with a painful expression.

"Nothing," the other boy waved a dismissive hand. "I don't get why you keep talking about them."

"Why don't you just tell us what you started?"

"Naruto, leave Sasuke alone!"

"Kakashi sensei, what's your opinion?"

Kakashi desperately wanted to be somewhere else._ Anywhere else_, where he wouldn't have to face three young genins looking at him with wide eyed innocence, waiting for answers. Quite obviously his team was very interested in the private life of their fallen enemies. The Uchiha was no exception, he just hid it better than Naruto.

It was understandable of course. They were their first serious opponents and their behaviour was inexplicable for the children. Haku, who couldn't have been more than a few years their senior behaved much more like an adult. They probably wouldn't comprehend the feelings he had for his master. Not to mention Zabuza's, who, in a twisted way, seemed to feel the same for the boy.

Wrong as Kakashi thought their relationship to be, on more than one level, he couldn't deny that he was a bit touched by their love. Maybe that was the aftereffect of reading too much Icha Icha Paradise... But no... There was no such thing as_ too much _Icha Icha Paradise.

Had Haku been indeed a girl, he would just tell them that their relationship was more than of a simple master and disciple. That Haku was in love with Zabuza, and that the Demon of the Hidden Mist, contrary to what he first thought of him, hadn't just simply taken advantage of the boy, but loved him in turn.

But Haku had been male and that just over complicated things. He would have to explain too many things and that wasn't something he was good at. When they become older, they would figure it out on their own...

"Sensei! We asked you something!"

"Oh, and what was that Naruto? I wasn't listening..."

"I can't believe it! We asked your opinion about that two."

"Well..." he started slowly, fishing for words "obviously Haku had a very high... regard for Zabuza. And Zabuza, erm, too, erm..."

"That we know sensei," Sakura interrupted.

"They were still strange. More than just teacher and student" Sasuke nodded, as if it wasn't him, just a minute ago, who denied Zabuza had felt anything for Haku.

"They loved each other," the copy ninja sighed, surrendering to his fate.

"Like... father and son?" Naruto's voice was unsure.

Kakashi sighed again and put his book away. This was definitely not in his contract or maybe they hid it in the part written in small letters no one ever read. Wasn't it the task of the children's family to educate them on such things? But of course neither Sasuke nor Naruto had a family...

What would the other team captains do in his stead? He could picture Gai clearly , making a speech at a loud voice about the power of love and how it wasn't important in what form did it appear, because what mattered was the emotion itself. Then he would cry his crocodile tears and try to hug Kakashi if he was anywhere near...

Fortifying himself with the thought that whatever he might say, it couldn't be a bigger or more stupid banality than Gai's speech would be, the masked man started the hardest talk in his life.

"No Naruto, I don't think it was like father and son. Rather like lovers."

"But sensei," Sakura broke the stunned silence "Haku..."

"Not only girls and boys can love each other. Boys can love boys and men can love men and boys can love men..." he was blushing, lucky that they couldn't have seen it under his mask. Sakura opened her eyes enormous as she looked at him. On the other hand, Sasuke had his eyebrows drawn together and way pinning him in a sharp look as if trying to determine if he was having them on. Naruto was scratching his head thoughtfully.

"But how?" he looked up in the end.

"What do you mean, Naruto?"

"Well, if a girl and a boy go out with each other, after a time they get married and have children... but what two boys do with each other?" Kakashi was almost embarrassed at such innocence, but then he caught a spark in those blue eyes. As if he just barely resisted glancing at Sasuke. As if he wasn't simply naive, but rather had a certain enthusiastic curiosity...

"Two man can't have children, but they can still..."

"Still what, sensei?"

"They still can have... a good time together."

"And what does that mean?" Naruto asked the question obviously intriguing all three of them after a moment of silence.

"Do you know more or less how these things work? Between a boy and a girl?" Kakashi started, repressing another sigh.

Sakura nodded uncertainly while her face became as red as a tomato. Naruto was, again, scratching his head. Sasuke obviously hadn't a clue either, but he made his usual _'I don't care about such things at all'_ face to hide it. Bloody fantastic...

"If a boy and a girl... love each other a lot...and once they are old enough," he remembered to add "then the time comes when, erm, they get close to each other. I mean physically. Bodily,"now Sasuke was paying attention as well, and Kakashi wished he never started his explanation at all. "You know that boys and girls are different - _down there_," three nods, three flushed faces. "So if they love each other a lot and they are old enough..."

"You said that already, sensei," Naruto grumbled.

"Yes, so then they take off their cloths and press...get...they became really close together as that feels _nice_. If two boys are in love, things go pretty similarly..." he should have stuck with Gai's version of_ the-power-of-love-conquers-all_, that was now obvious.

"But sensei, I think I understand, more or less, what a girl and a boy can do together," Sakura cast a painfully admiring glance at Sasuke, who was very purposefully not looking at her direction. "But two boys... they both have... then how...?"

"They manage," Kakashi cut off the discussion from his part and refused to say anything else on the matter even as the children started to argue once again.

/*/*/*/

"Sasuke... pst, Sasuke!"

"What's it, Naruto?"

"You're asleep?"

"Obviously not, as I answered you, you dolt."

Kakashi opened his sole visible eye to a crack. He could just make out the silhouette of the two boys in the dim light of the embers of the fire. Naruto was lying on his stomach, leaning close to the other. He obviously thought he was speaking silently, but the blond brat was loud even when he was whispering.

"What'ya think Sasuke, was the sensei telling the truth?"

"About what?"

"About boys being in love with each other, dattebayo."

"Why wouldn't it be the truth? That would explain why Haku acted so strange."

A few minutes of silence followed and when Kakashi just started to hope they had fallen asleep...

"Hey Sasuke! Sakura is smitten with you. Do _you _like anyone?"

That's Naruto being subtle... you're too young for this anyway, Kakashi thought irritably as he stood up to put some wood on the almost extinguished fire. The two boys immediately fell silent. Luckily. It was a conversation he certainly had no interest listening to.

**FIN**


End file.
